Next Up: Los Angeles Lakers | Raptors Today

Next Up: Los Angeles Lakers | Raptors Today

Basketball fans welcome back inside the belly of the Beast that is the scoa bank arena Sher hamon Ashley daing a keel Austine and your Toronto Raptors taking on the western conference’s 10th best team the Los Angeles Lakers who have being struggling they got to win against the Clippers but let’s face it this

Raptor team has kind of lost its identity I myself personally sh thought that Rob pinka did a great job addressing some of the concerns with this roster heading into the season but it’s not turning out that way on the court your thoughts of where this Lakers

Team is at right now well I think any team can use the excuse of Health but they’ve had some health issues there’s no doubt about it um Anthony Davis is finally leveling off and being the guy that everybody thinks he can be consistently LeBron James is still doing

Stuff at in his 21st year that doesn’t make sense in terms of how dominant he is Austin Reeves has been great for them at times I just don’t know if the collective is working is able to work together and you know you win the the playing tournament which is a great

Accomplishment and then right after and yeah and you’re having that that that tough time sense and the question is why because to win the playing tournament you had to get it done on all levels and they did it so it’s there now how do you duplicate that how do you get it going

Again without LeBron having to be Hercules and bring the whole thing along that’s my big concern for this group is if they want long-term success they can’t hang their hat on LeBron being a 30 plus Point per game guy Ashley I mean I feel like that’s kind of

His Mo though with teams that he has to drag along is that he does always find a way somehow it’s like the Tom Brady effect I know that people are sick of hearing about Tom Brady maybe it’s been a few years since he left so people

Aren’t as much but it’s like you can’t ever count the Patriots out right it’s like you can never count a LeBron James team out I think the biggest thing for them is he can always put up points he can you know affect things maybe like on a chase down block or something like

That but defensively as a group there hasn’t been a team since 995 that’s found success in the NBA Finals um that’s been less than like a 10 or an 11 defensive rating they’re hitting at 12 they’re on a downward slope who knows where it’s going to go so I think when

You have Anthony Davis is he going to stay healthy what’s his ceiling the conversation around Davis too like Sherm said we’re getting what we think he’s supposed to be but like he has never really that long term or superseded those expectations so I think this group is always just kind of PGE Podge

Together papermache if you will since he’s been in with the Lakers and so we’re kind of seeing that right now I think a big part of this too is they were expecting internal growth from some of their young guys and I don’t think they’ve seen that consistently outside

Of Austin Reeves and so a lot of the focus has shifted to Darin ham and there’s even talk of maybe him being on the hot seat you believe it always yeah or darham always thought he had some I feel like the coaches are always the

First to go yeah and but he said that we’re aligned internally I feel safe everything’s fine so whatever the company line is that’s it for now yeah it’s difficult you think about teams that LeBron has left how they’ve done the years after he’s left they’ve been bad yeah yeah they’ve been bad so

Succession planning is difficult when you have such a polarized star like LeBron and it’s it’s really difficult in the process of trying to win to develop Talent behind because all your focus is on winning and if you’re going to win now those guys have to eat the minutes

Up you can’t really develop in High Press situations so it’s a tough tough line to toe you think about any championship team look at the Spurs after they dim Duncan was done and manu’s gone and Tony’s gone the C go off a cliff Jordan when he left with the

Bulls they go off a cliff that’s just the nature of the Beast you win now in this league and it’s hard to plan to win and consistently win when those pieces leave it’s just not a recipe that’s happened successfully for any Championship level team that I can

Remember and he’s not a traditional vet either right where you’re like bringing him in to be this sounding board this Wy vet to give you advice he’s older he’s your leading scorer he still wants titles he wants to orchestrate a plan where he’s going to play with his kids so there’s just so

Much that comes along with him and what’s crazy is I mean year 21 yeah we’ve never seen this before never we’ve never seen I mean LeBron and I came into the league at the same time and I didn’t played a game and I’m more tired than

I’m more broken down than him it’s a fact all right on that where are you going on that note your Toronto Raptors have a match up with bron James in the Los Angeles Lakers and you can catch that on the TSN family of networks January 9th 10:30 and we’ll see you after the

Break

Akil, Sherm and Ashley look ahead to the next matchup against the Los Angeles Lakers.

0:00 Introduction
0:23 Lakers’ Identity
1:23 Relying on LeBron
2:36 Darvin Ham

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